


Berath's Gate

by captainofthefallen



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: F/M, Near Death Experiences, Pre-Relationship, Speculation, because i like to make madison suffer with an entire game's worth of mutual pining, cross-posted from tumblr, madison made me do it, me taking liberties with the lovers' rings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 09:44:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11848980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainofthefallen/pseuds/captainofthefallen
Summary: When Eothas emerges from below Caed Nua in the body of Od Nua's titan, Watcher Mara almost dies. Or, me speculating around the vague premise of Deadfire and playing with the idea of the lovers' rings because of reasons.





	1. Chapter 1

He keeps the ring. 

Neither of them says anything about it, of course. They hardly say anything. They just… part ways. 

He goes south to Dyrford, remembering the village that had known so much hardship during the Legacy and wanting to help. And if he’s more than a little hurt when her presence seems to fade from the back of his mind, he doesn’t say anything. It’s her right, after all. And he’s the one who left. 

He puts it from his mind, focusing all his energy on helping. Dyrford needs it. And he starts by hiring a couple guys from the tavern to head underground, make sure the cult of Skaen is really gone. 

It’s not. There’s a small pocket of survivors, trying to rebuild, talking to the crazy pool of talking blood or whatever it was. He was never really clear on that one.  
They draw their weapons and a fight breaks out. Nothing special–a battle like any other, except for one thing. 

He takes hits, more so than either of the others, he thinks. He even takes the brunt of a draining spell–he knows it, it was a last resort of Aloth’s, somebody-or-other’s corrosive siphon. But he hardly feels any of it. And through it all, it’s almost like she’s there, her presence stronger than it has been since he left her side, and he realizes something. 

Since they put on the rings, they haven’t been apart. In fact, he’s hardly left her side since he met her in Gilded Vale all those months ago. 

When the battle’s over and her presence has faded, he sends his mercenaries to search for survivors. When they’re gone, he sits against the wall, closes his eyes, and focuses on her. He lets her fill his mind in a way he’s been blocking since he left, almost like he’s reaching out to grasp her hand, and–

There she is. 

She didn’t leave, he realizes. It was him. It was always him. 

It’s different, at a distance. He has to consciously reach out in order to feel her. But it’s a comfort. He reaches out when he’s exhausted from a fight to defend the village, or from a day of dealing with grievances and trying to restore the village to what it could be. She’s always there, ready to lend him some of her strength. And whether she’s physically tired from fighting off bandits or mentally exhausted from dealing with the Dyrwood nobility, he’s always ready to lend her some of his. 

That’s how he knows, even before the messenger comes, that something’s wrong. He reaches out, like he always does in a quiet moment, just to know she’s there, and a moment later he’s jumping to his feet and preparing for a journey because she’s not there. He can’t find her. And what that might mean… 

He doesn’t want to think about it. 

The messenger meets him at his front door, breathless, gasping about how the statue beneath Caed Nua came to life and destroyed everything, and then he’s running. He’s summoning two of his best men–a scout and a healer–and they’re taking horses, and they’re riding for Caed Nua as though Berath himself is at their heels. 

He keeps reaching for her, in the vain hope that something will change, that she’ll suddenly be there and everything will be fine, and when hours pass with no change he begins to hope that she lost the ring in the chaos somehow, and that’s why he can’t feel her. 

Part of him knows it’s fruitless. Part of him thinks he’s foolish for even hoping. But he can’t think she’s dead. If she is… 

He can’t. 

They’re still about two hours’ ride from the keep when something shifts. He reaches out again, like bashing himself against a locked door in the hopes that it will open, and there’s a flicker. It’s gone in an instant, and moments later he’s almost sure he imagined it, but then there it is again. 

This time, he reaches for it with all his concentration, grasping it like a lifeline (but hers, not his, though at this point they may well be the same thing) and pouring everything he has into it. He almost feels her protest (“I can’t ask that of you,” she said so long ago, when she learned what the rings did, but he insisted and now he’s grateful he did). But he doesn’t matter. He pushes himself to the edge of unconsciousness, fighting to keep that flicker, to strengthen it, because if it dies, so does she. 

When they reach the keep, his men begin to search for survivors. They find one or two–servants, mercenaries–but he, staggering from his self-induced exhaustion, gripping that connection like some kind of tether, heads directly for what’s left of the keep. 

He doesn’t know how he knows she’s there. Whether their distance strengthened the bond, whether he’s always been able to follow it like this but never needed to. It doesn’t matter. 

All that matters is when he sees her. All that matters is that she’s unconscious. All that matters is that she’s half covered in a pile of rubble that used to be the stone home of the Steward. She’s silent now, like the rest of the keep. 

All that matters is that her life is flickering and weak and slipping away, and he might be on the brink of death himself but he doesn’t know or care. He yells for the healer, mustering the remains of his strength to shove the largest of the stones off of her, enough that he can pull her out. 

“Keep her alive,” he tells the healer, and he looks at her, touches her face for the first time in far too long, and gives her the last of his strength. 

His last thought is a prayer–an old habit, really–that it will be enough.


	2. Chapter 2

She’s not really clear on what happened. Some kind of earthquake, but they’re in the middle of the Dyrwood. They don’t get earthquakes, in her limited experience. Not by natural causes, anyway. 

She’s standing on a road, she thinks. Narrow, surrounded on all sides by a field of stars. Is she dreaming, then? Maybe. Or maybe it’s another vision. 

Ahead, she sees a door. A door in a skull’s mouth, like her vision of Berath. Behind, a light, so bright it almost burns, but it’s not welcoming or inviting. 

She falls to her knees (if they’re even real) under the weight of a sudden flash of memory. _Lightning flashing around the outside of the keep, turning the world purple, she runs out of Brighthollow, telling everyone to get to the keep for safety, praying it will be enough, but suddenly the stones around the chapel shift, and the ground quakes, and a gigantic adra fist closes around the building, crushing it to splinters._

She gasps, opening her eyes, looking back and forth between Berath (the Usher and the Pallid Knight flank the door) and that strange light that blinds but doesn’t burn. 

If she goes onward, she’s choosing death, that much is clear. Funny, she thinks. Didn’t think I’d get a choice. 

She doesn’t want to die. She turns back toward the light and pushes to her feet, but something stops her, almost like a physical force holding her back. Why is it… 

With a startled cry, she falls to her knees again as another flash of memory overtakes her. _She sees the fist and she runs, there’s only so much she can do, and she knows that if she dies Caed Nua goes with her. It might be going anyway, but she has to try. Get to Steward, her mind says. She may be able to help. Some hidden defenses, or, or something. On the threshold of the keep, she turns back. There’s a hole in the ground. A pit, descending into the depths. She’s been there before. She’s seen Od Nua’s titan in its entirety. She never imagine it would come to life. But there it is, and as it turns its head to face her, something flares to life across its forehead. A symbol._  
She returns to herself with a gasp. _Eothas._

Her first thought is of Edér. He’ll be crushed. 

This is the choice she faces, then. Last time she walked Berath’s road, she had no choice. This is hardly better. To die, or to return to face an enemy worse than any she could have imagined. More powerful than Thaos, more powerful even than the Master Below; a “god” who clearly gives fewer shits about following the rules than even Woedica. 

If she goes that way, if she chooses to return… will he not just kill her immediately? Or has he already left her keep behind to ravage the rest of the world? 

So she stands, facing to one side, unable even to look at Eothas’ light, but unwilling to move toward Berath. She faced down impossible odds before, and won. She wants to go back, she’s not ready to die, but… the light. Somehow, whatever Eothas is doing, he’s keeping her from moving back. 

As she thinks, though, shifting her hand to shield her face from the blinding light, the glow seems to fade, as though it is being eclipsed. Cautiously, she begins to lower her hand. There’s a figure, on the road directly in front of the light, blocking it. And suddenly she can move. 

She takes a few cautious steps, back toward the eclipse of Eothas, waiting to see if she’ll encounter another block. There’s nothing. Encouraged, she walks faster, then breaks into a run. 

The road is far longer than it looks. She suspects this may be Berath’s doing. But as she runs, the light of Eothas seems to fade, receding into nothing, blocked out completely by the interceding figure. A figure she now recognizes. 

She runs faster and she doesn’t stop, ready to throw her arms around his neck in greeting, and then– 

A foot away, she stops short. Remembers everything that happened (or didn’t happen) between them. And then it occurs to her that he is standing here, with her, on the road to death. 

“What did you do?” She’s afraid now, and makes no attempt to disguise it. If he’s traded his life for hers, or something equally stupid… 

“What I had to,” is his answer. It’s not reassuring. 

She reaches out, tentatively, hovering for a moment before putting her hand on his shoulder. “Are you…?”

“Dead?” He gives her that trademark half-grin. “Not sure. Doesn’t matter anyway.”

Her eyes bug. “Are you crazy?! Of course it matters!”

His grin fades into something more gentle and he shakes his head. “Nah. You’re alive. Or you will be. ’S all I care about." 

She crosses her arms and narrows her eyes at him. "Oh yeah? How’s this, then? I’m not leaving here without you, Mayor Teylecg." 

He chuckles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. "You’re stubborn, I’ll give you that. Almost as bad as my brother. By the look of this place, though? Berath wants payment. And I’m not letting it be you." 

"Fuck Berath,” she snaps with unexpected vehemence. “He’s not taking you." 

He folds his arms with some kind of omniscient smirk, like he knows he’s going to win this one. She glowers at him. "Looks like we’re at an impasse then,” he says. 

“Looks like we are,” she replies, mimicking his pose. 

They stare each other down in silence for a few moments before he says with an air of forced casualness, “So… how’s the Dyrwood nobility?”

She rolls her eyes. “Ugh, don’t get me started. Part of me almost regrets not just letting Gathbin have the place, so he could deal with all the assholes himself." 

"Aw, come on,” he says. “Place wouldn’t be half as good with him running it. And the basement would still be full o’ monsters." 

She grins suddenly. "Love to see him try to fight that adra dragon." 

They laugh, and for a moment it’s back in the old days, and they’re gathered by the campfire, and they’re not standing on the road to death facing an unbearable ultimatum. 

"How’s Dyrford?” she asks. 

He shrugs a shoulder. “Better and better. Always new problems to deal with, of course, but they’re doin’ all right." 

Silence falls again, fraught with tension, and finally she sighs. "Look, Edér…”

He looks over at her, a strange softness in his eyes. “I missed you,” he says. 

She’d had an argument all planned out. Caed Nua’s done for anyway, he has a village depending on him–but it all vanishes in an instant when she meets his eyes. What comes out instead is… the truth. “I can’t lose you.” Well. Not the whole truth. But a large part of it. “Half of what made all this bearable was…” she twists the ring on her finger, “knowing you were out there. I can’t lose that. I can’t lose you." 

He sets a heavy hand on her shoulder. "Then you know how I feel." 

Her heart skips a beat. He doesn’t… he can’t. 

She glances back over her shoulder. Neither aspect of Berath has moved. She looks back at Edér, steeling her resolve. "You know what? Fuck ‘em. No one loses anyone today." 

He frowns. "But…”

“You were there,” she reminds him. “They’re not gods. That means they can be stopped, and they’re not absolute. Let’s see Berath try to stop us." 

"How do we–”

“Just follow my lead.”

She clasps his hand tightly and closes her eyes, concentrating with all her might on Caed Nua, all but dragging her soul back to her body, and his right along with her. Berath, or whatever it is, resists, but somehow the knowledge that he isn’t omnipotent is all the strength she needs. 

The pain returns with awareness. Broken ribs, probably, and at least one broken leg. She isn’t about to check. Or move. 

She groans. “Maybe I should’ve just died." 

"Don’t say that.” He’s there, right at her side, one of his hands gently cupping her face. “And don’t do that to me again, you hear? Thought you were dead." 

She nods, too weary to argue. He seems to notice, and his gaze softens. "You’re gonna be okay,” he says. “Get some rest. I’ll be right here." 

"Can you…?”

He nods before she can finish the question. The last thing she hears before slipping back into unconsciousness is his voice, soothing her to sleep. They’ve got problems, sure. Boatloads of them. But for now, he’s here, and she feels safer than she has in months.


End file.
